


The Forked Path

by SleepySsnail



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Clones, Fights, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Humor, Lions, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Suggestions Welcomed, season 3 changes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepySsnail/pseuds/SleepySsnail
Summary: An alternate reality where Kuron realizes he's a clone and uses that to help Voltron, the paladins get the character development they deserve, ships may happen, shenanigans will ensue and the readers get a say in what goes on.





	The Forked Path

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been wanting to make a canon divergence au for a while now just because I had a few ideas that I personally really liked. I appreciated comments, and since I only have a vague idea for this fanfiction if anyone has suggestions or ideas, I’m totally gonna consider them!
> 
> Timewise, this takes place in season 3 just after Kuron escapes the Galra and is found by the team.

Shiro knew something was wrong for a while, he just couldn’t pinpoint something specific. When he had escaped the Galra in one of their crafts, everything seemed easy. At the time it was terrifying and he thought for sure he’d be caught again and thrown back into whatever testing chamber they had him in for the clones they were making of him, but he made it out.

It was when he hit his head during the crash on the ice planet that things began to feel wrong.

His memories were there like they should be, but they were all hazy and fuzzed up, almost like dreams he didn’t really experience. Every exchange with Keith that had brought a smile to his lips now made him grit his teeth as he strained to remember what the red paladin’s voice _sounded like_. Talking with the team, the Kerberos mission, Adam…it was all too faded to be true. Everything before his escape felt like someone had put a filter over his mind.

The next thing that didn’t line up were his headaches.

Shiro knew he experienced pain, there was almost always some part of him that was achy and sore or stabbed in sharp stabs from his own body. But headaches were the only thing that he knew went away quickly. He had never had chronic migraines, actually, the only time he had a really bad one was when he went 38 hours without sleeping for finals week at the Garrison. If those memories were even correct.

Shaking his head, Shiro gripped the blanket covering his bed and let out a long breath. Keith had left to see how the others were doing on the bridge, leaving Shiro with his thoughts and doubts. So many doubts. Shiro had seen what the Galra could do, he had even seen the clones of himself lying motionless on the testing tables while the Galra stood over them.

He made it out too easily.

Throwing the blanket off, Shiro stood up and pushed some of his loose hair back from his face, suddenly unsure if he should cut it back to a shorter length. Keith had left a spare set of clothes for him hanging on the wall in case Shiro decided he wanted to get up and join the others. When he finished dressing himself, Shiro tucked his hair behind his ears and started towards the bridge, relying upon his foggy memory and what he assumed was reflex to walk through the hallways and elevators until he arrived at the sliding doors.

For a moment, Shiro wondered if he was just overthinking this. He had been captured by the Galra before, he was traumatized, they had scarred him, taken his arm-

It felt like a ton of bricks slammed into Shiro’s chest as he looked down at his hand, flexing the fingers like he normally would. The Galra had given him the arm as a weapon to make him a better fighter in the ring, but since it was their technology was it possible they could add a tracker? Could they be watching what he’s doing right now?

A surge of adrenaline rushed through Shiro as he stepped through the sliding doors, fueled by his fear.

Everything looked normal, and Shiro could distantly hear someone greeting him, but he was preoccupied. Looking around, Shiro ran a hand through ihs hair and looked around until his eyes landed on Pidge.  Approaching the youngest paladin, Shiro scrambled to think of what to say until it was too late and Pidge had seen him.

Smiling, Pidge cleared whatever she had been working on from her station, “Hey Shiro. How’re you doing?”

“Can you do tests on my arm to make sure I’m me?”

The question rang through the air, prompting silence from everyone else on the bridge, including Coran who had been chattering happily.

Pidge looked taken aback as she adjusted her glasses and asked carefully, “Where did that come from? Do you think you’re being tracked?”

“No,” Shiro winced as the pounding in his head became sharp, “I want to know if I’m actually Takashi Shirogane.”

“What’re you talking about?” Lance asked, worry apparent in his tone as he stood from ~~Keith’s~~ _his_ station.

All eyes were on Shiro, and at one point he may have liked being able to command the room and explain things to give a sense of calm, but that didn’t seem to be possible now.

Clenching his Galra arm’s fist, Shiro fixed his eyes on a point on the wall and steeled himself as he said, “The Galra are making clones. Of me.  I saw them and it was too easy to escape and I just, I just need to know. Everything’s felt wrong since I hit my head a while ago and I don’t want to hurt you guys.”

There was another bout of silence as everyone took in what Shiro said, different emotions flashing in their eyes, prompting worry to build up in his gut.

“If you come to the lab with me I can do some tests,” Pidge suggested, breaking the looming silence, “It should only take an hour or so-”

“No,” Shiro interjected, earning a look of surprise from the others, “I don’t want to test to see if I’m being tracked or if I’m okay. I need you to run every test that would prove I’m not Shiro.”

Nodding Pidge turned back to her console and hummed slightly as if putting the process together in her mind. Turning to the others, Shiro let out a sigh and looked apologetically at them as if to atone for his outburst. Lance was the first to bounce back, flashing a smile and igniting a conversation with Hunk, while Allura became engrossed in her work and Keith uncomfortably took his place at the black paladin’s station.

Making his way to the back of the room, Shiro stopped in front of where Coran was repairing something and asked, “Hey, Coran?”

Jumping up to answer, Coran mock saluted with a wrench still in his hand as he asked, “Yes, Shiro?”

Smiling at the older Altean, Shiro lowered his voice and asked, “What abilities does the Blacklion have that you know of? I’m just a bit curious.”

Coran’s eyes lighted up as he maintained a hushed tone and said, “I can make you a list! Alfor and Zarkon were meticulous about keeping track of what powers the lions had!”

“Thanks, Coran,” Shiro placed his hand on the man’s shoulder to show his appreciation before taking his place against the back wall to watch the others take charge without him.

* * *

“Since you want a lot more than I suggested, this is gonna take longer than an hour” Pidge stated as she finished attaching another wire to Shiro’s arm, “You basically want me to not only extract data from your arm, but you essentially want me to ask you all 250 questions the Garrison prepares to ensure you aren’t spies. Right?”

Shiro jerked his head to the side to remove some of his hair from his vision and laughed nervously, “Maybe not that much. I just-”

“Want to run some neurological tests and maybe a few brainwave patterns?” Pidge supplied, smirking as she adjusted her glasses.

“That’s a good idea,” Shiro said, flashing a smile just as his headache worsened.

Not trying to hide his discomfort, Shiro placed his free hand to his head and took a few slow breaths in hope of alleviating the pain. Pidge frowned as she typed something into her laptop and turned her attention to Shiro and gently took his head in her hands. Making a face of concentration, the green paladin aligned her fingers on specific places on Shiro’s skull, pressing lightly in some places and harder in others.

“What’re you doing?”

“I dunno,” Pidge stated, a pout of concentration on her face as she continued, “I used to have Matt do this for me when I was sick, and I saw the Olkari doing it too, so I figured it might help.”

“I think it’s working,” Shiro mumbled, an unforeseen wave of exhaustion flowing over him.

Pidge pulled her hands back and nodded in satisfaction before returning to her typing. Looking over the paladin’s shoulder, Shiro blinked as he read the code she was typing. It was precise and well thought out, but something itched in the back of Shiro’s mind.

“Wouldn’t it be faster to try searching for the inaccuracies in my arm’s programming before looking for a tracker? Or use the Altean coding for this instead of the Olkari Human one you devised?”

Pidge stopped what she was doing and turned sharply to ask, “How did you read all that?”

“It’s right there,” Shiro stated, pointing to the laptop monitor, earning a headshake from Pidge.

“No, no, no,” Pidge waved her hands in front of Shiro’s face, “My computer screen is moving the code faster than the human eye can read. The only reason I know what’s on it is because I programmed it, but as for you…this is weird.”

“Sorry?” Shiro asked, not sure of how to respond.

Pidge glanced back at her computer as something popped up. Groaning, she began to rewrite the code in the Altean form like Shiro suggested, instead of the way she liked it.

As if on cue, Hunk walked in, the green lion’s hangar suddenly filling with joy as the boy held out a tray of food.

“I kinda figured since you two would be down here a while you should have some snacks!”

“Thanks, Hunk,” Shiro offered a smile and took what looked like a dark purple chocolate chip cookies and tentatively took a bite.

“Actually,” Pidge said loudly, “I’m only gonna need Shiro for an hour or so to finish his arm’s scan. Then we’ll be doing some stuff with his head to see if he isn’t Shiro.”

Hunk Shifted from one foot to another as he asked curiously, “That means?”

“It means I’ll need you too. Not yet, but I’ll have Shiro come get you or someone to help me with the second part of the tests.”

“Oh man,” Hunk send a sympathetic glance to Shiro, “You’re gonna be here a long time huh?”

“I literally asked for it,” Shiro joked, laughing at his own comment with Hunk.

* * *

“I’m done,” Pidge announced, shaking Shiro’s shoulder lightly to get his attention.

Jolting awake from where he had been dozing off, Shiro rubbed his eyes and yawned. Pidge shot a glare at Shiro as she yawned too, disconnecting the cords and wires from his arm and turning back to her computer.

“So I ran into a few snags,” Pidge explained, motioning Shiro closer to look at her monitor, “Usually I’d get a full readout, but something’s blocking me from accessing that easily. The Galra did tamper with your arm, but I’ll need a few minutes to look through it before we do the brain scans. Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect, Pidge,” Shiro smiled, standing up and stretching.

Exiting the hangar, Shiro wandered through the hallways until he ended up at the training deck. Peering inside, Shiro saw how empty it was and chose to take a moment for himself by entering and sitting on the floor against the wall. Closing his eyes, Shiro tried to think back to when the paladins did their first training exercises in the room.

They were still foggy.

Groaning in frustration, Shiro stood up and walked the perimeter of the room in silence until someone walked in. Looking up from the floor, Shiro met eyes with Lance and Allura, both of whom were carrying their miscolored bayards.

Pointing to the door, Shiro found himself stammering, “I’ll stay out of your way.”

“No way man! Stay! Allura keeps wiping the floor with me, I need someone else to help me!” Lance exclaimed stepping in Shiro’s path to keep him from leaving.

“I don’t think I should do any sparring yet,” Shiro said, trying to sidestep Lance.

“That’s okay!” Lance insisted, something in his eyes almost begging Shiro to stay, “You could watch?”

“Lance, don’t bother him. Shiro’s been through quite a lot recently,” Allura commanded, stepping onto the training deck.

Glancing at Shiro, Lance mumbled an uncharacteristically brief apology and made his way to stand back to back with Allura as training bots dropped from the ceiling. Beginning to turn away, Shiro paused and watched for a moment as Lance carefully picked off the gladiators that Allura missed or that went into her blind spots. Sitting down to watch, Shiro found himself open-mouthed at how much Lance had improved over the time he had been missing.

Pausing the training simulation, Allura flashed a smile to Lance and asked, “Shall we do another round? That one seemed light.”

Lance shook his head, trying to catch his breath he laughed, “I can’t seem to keep up with you, Princess.”

“I think you’re doing fine, Lance,” Shiro called from where he was sitting, causing both fighters to jump in surprise upon seeing he was there.

A grin crept across Lance’s face as he asked breathlessly, ”Really?”

Nodding, Shiro stood and joined the two paladins in the ring, something in him insisting he give pointers and praise to the two. Lance nodded and seemed engrossed in everything Shiro said, making his own comments and jokes as they went along. Allura smiled softly as Shiro explained how to better position her footing for one of her strikes.

“We missed you.”

Shir would’ve missed the comment from Lance if there hadn’t been a lull in the conversation, but somehow the simple statement made something in Shiro’s chest tighten in what could’ve been joy or relief.

“I missed you guys too. At least I think  I did,” Shiro replied, earning a light smack on the shoulder from Allura.

“Don’t tease us, we were worried!”

Holding up his hands in mock surrender, Shiro snickered, “I know, I know. Just messing with you guys.”

The three glanced at each other and the tension in the air Shiro kept feeling seemed to finally relax.

“HOLD THE PRESSES!”

Shiro jumped as he, Allura, and Lance turned to see Pidge standing in the doorway, panting and holding one of her notepads tightly.

Standing up and catching her breath, Pidge pushed her hair back from her face and stated, “Next time tell me here you’re going, I had to run all over looking for you!”

“Sorry,” Shiro rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, earning a skeptical look from Pidge as she flipped to a page in her book and began to recite what was written.

“I ran the checks through your arm, and even without the brain wave patterns and those other scans Coran wanted to do-”

“Coran knows those scans are for the Altean physiology only!”

“-I found what you wanted to know.”

Holding out her book to him, Shiro tool the pad from Pidge and quickly scanned the page, the happiness in him suddenly dropping into a pit in his stomach.

Handing the notebook back to Pidge, Shiro looked at the ground and asked, “What now?”

“We could start by telling Keith and Coran,” Pidge suggested, running her finger along a line of numbers she had written, “That would clear them up on what’s happening.”

“What is happening?” Lance asked, crossing his arms in annoyance.

Allura nodded in agreement, looking to Shiro for an answer, causing the sick feeling in his gut to worsen as he tried to find the right words.

For a moment it felt like his world was crashing down around him all over again until he finally said in a hushed tone, “I’m not Shiro.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [ tumblr @sleepyssnail](https://sleepyssnail.tumblr.com/) if you're interested in dropping by!


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